Edward Burtynsky with Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier: Anthropocene

A visceral expression of humanity's incursions on the planet and an urgent cry to acknowledge humankind's responsibility

Anthropocene is a multidisciplinary body of work by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, which includes a photobook, a major traveling museum exhibition, a feature documentary film and an interactive educational website. The project's starting point is the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists who are advocating to officially change the name of our present geological epoch, Holocene, to Anthropocene, in recognition of profound human changes to the earth's system. The AWG's research categories, such as Anthroturbation, Species Extinction, Technofossils, Boundary Limits and Terraforming, are represented and explored in various mediums as evidence of our species' impact on a geological scale.

The works of Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky (born 1955) are included in the collections of over 60 major museums, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His previous publications with Steidl are China (2005), Quarries (2007), Oil (2009), Water (2013) and Salt Pans (2016).Jennifer Baichwal (born 1965) has directed and produced documentaries for over 20 years. Manufactured Landscapes, about the work of Edward Burtynsky in China, was released in 12 countries. Nicholas de Pencier is a documentary director, producer and director of photography. Selected credits include Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, The Holier It Gets and Act of God. He was also director, producer and director of photography of Watermark and Black Code.

Featured image is reproduced from 'Edward Burtynsky with Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier: Anthropocene.'

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

PDN

Holly Stuart Hughes

Burtynsky invites viewers to consider the subject of geological time.

Flaunt Magazine

Anthropocene warns us, beautifully and eerily, that we may already be on the way [to the end of the human race].

Hyperallergic

Lev Feigin

The book is a journey across 20 countries that explores humanity’s devastating effects on nature, from technofossils and urbanization to deforestation, resource depletion and biodiversity loss. Each image reveals, to use Walter Benjamin’s term, the “optical unconscious” of our era: concrete seawalls and mammoth river dams of China, floating city slums of Nigeria, Chile’s lithium and copper mines, log booms in Canada, hyperscale greenhouses of Spain, marble quarries of Italy, nuclear power stations and petrochemical plants in the U.S. and global mega-cities.

Hyperallergic

Louis Bury

The power of Edward Burtynsky’s landscape photographs is undeniable... These exhilarating portrayals of civilization’s ecological self-estrangement are not quite the images we need, but they are the ones we deserve.

Daily Mail

Dusica Sue Malesevic

For photographer Edward Burtynsky, his aerial takes of landscapes, [...] are a way to show how humans have reshaped the planet.

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 3/26/2019

Tuesday, April 2 at 7PM at Indigo Bay Bloor, Toronto, photographer Edward Burtynsky will appear in conversation with Indigo’s Chief Booklover, Heather Reisman, in celebration of Burtynsky's new book Anthropocene, which brings contemporary art into conversation with the massive and irreversible impact of humans on Earth. Book signing to follow. continue to blog

CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 4/2/2019

It's hard to tear your eyes from Anthropocene, Edward Burtynsky's new book with Jennifer Baichwal and Nick de Pencier. Collecting photographic and scientific evidence of recent profound changes wrought by human beings upon planet Earth, this book is both graphically riveting and politically galvanizing. "Our planet has borne witness to five great extinction events," Burtynsky writes, "and these have been prompted by a variety of causes: a colossal meteor impact, massive volcanic eruptions and oceanic cyanobacteria activity that generated a deadly toxicity in the atmosphere. These were the naturally occurring phenomena governing life's ebb and flow. Now it is becoming clear that humankind, with its population explosion, industry and technology, has in a very short period of time also become an agent of immense global change. Arguably, we are on the cusp of becoming (if we are not already) the perpetrators of a sixth major extinction event. Our planetary system is affected by a magnitude of force as powerful as any naturally occurring global catastrophe, but one caused solely by the activity of a single species: us." Featured image is "Lithium Mines #1, Salt Flats, Atacama Desert, Chile" (2017). continue to blog

A visceral expression of humanity's incursions on the planet and an urgent cry to acknowledge humankind's responsibility

Anthropocene is a multidisciplinary body of work by Edward Burtynsky, Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, which includes a photobook, a major traveling museum exhibition, a feature documentary film and an interactive educational website. The project's starting point is the research of the Anthropocene Working Group, an international body of scientists who are advocating to officially change the name of our present geological epoch, Holocene, to Anthropocene, in recognition of profound human changes to the earth's system. The AWG's research categories, such as Anthroturbation, Species Extinction, Technofossils, Boundary Limits and Terraforming, are represented and explored in various mediums as evidence of our species' impact on a geological scale.

The works of Toronto-based photographer Edward Burtynsky (born 1955) are included in the collections of over 60 major museums, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. His previous publications with Steidl are China (2005), Quarries (2007), Oil (2009), Water (2013) and Salt Pans (2016).

Jennifer Baichwal (born 1965) has directed and produced documentaries for over 20 years. Manufactured Landscapes, about the work of Edward Burtynsky in China, was released in 12 countries. Nicholas de Pencier is a documentary director, producer and director of photography. Selected credits include Let It Come Down: The Life of Paul Bowles, The Holier It Gets and Act of God. He was also director, producer and director of photography of Watermark and Black Code.